Our Story
Our fascination with this pitchy, flammable wood began many years ago on an outing in the Middle Fork of the Salmon River primitive area in Idaho. The guide was seen splintering off pieces of wood that he would light directly with a match. After placing it under some dry material, this splintered wood soon had a crackling fire going. No other type of firestarter was used. It seemed incredible that nature would provide such a wonderful substance for starting fires. After observing the guide and asking many questions, pitch became readily available if one looked.
Pitchwood is a tree's reaction to injury, mostly commonly lightning strike, thus our name. Pitchwood was a prized commodity for Indians on the frontier. Used in trading, "squaw wood", the Indian's term for this highly resinous wood, started many fires for "unsettled settlers." Pitch is found mostly in Yellow and Ponderosa pine and is the western version of southern "fatwood."
A fire started with some pitch sticks and one match in a driving rainstorm on the slopes of MT. Rainer convinced us of its value. It goes with us everywhere!! It has been a most appreciated Christmas gift to many of our friends, and it was our enthusiasm that inspired us to market this unique, natural product.
It began with our founders five sons helping to chop the pitch by hand. But increased demand for this product pressed us toward mechanization. The process of sawing rather then chopping this pitchwood resulted in the accumulation of piles and piles of wonderfully pitchy material... too useful to discard.
Through trial and error, we devised a method to compress the pulverized pitchwood with a miniscule amount of food grade wax to develop LIGHTNING NUGGETS® and LIGHTNIN' BUGS®. Bugs are ideal for pellet stove and smaller fire starting.
Each of these little treasure Nuggets burn at least 15 minutes, eliminating the use of newspaper, any dangerous petroleum products, and even kindling if the wood is dry. Bugs burn for 7 minutes.
We can guarantee the performance of every single one!
LIGHTING NUGGETS® and LIGHTNIN' BUGS® FIRESTARTERS are non-toxic, environmentally safe and conscientious utilization of one of nature's by-products as it is a renewable resource we continue to recycle and minimize waste.
MADE IN U.S.A. Founded in 1978.
